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Read about the Love Lives of the Great Composers, by your friendly DJ.


Great Composer Quiz - Previous Answers (Highlight to reveal the Composer or Masterwork)

February 17th: This time it’s a Quiz about how to recover from a loss of funding. When civil war broke out in his native country, this Great Composer lost his scholarship which came from back home and he and his wife moved to the Black Forest, where they were received as refugees. They remained there for two years, and during this time our Great Composer made a study of bird-songs in the forest. At the end of that time he simply could not be away from home any longer, and though war was still raging he moved back to his native land, into the relatively safe confines of the university. So who was this bird-loving academic come home to roost, this Great Composer?
Joaquin Rodrigo, who lost his schlaroship when the Spanish Civil War broke out, so he and his wife Victoria went to live in the Black Forest, in Germany for two years, where he studied bird-songs. Rodrigo was blind. He would sit among the trees for hours, listening.

February 16th: The Great President's Quiz--- On this Presidents Day, it's a Great Presidents Quiz. This Great President regarded music as "a delightful recreation through life." He called it “this favorite passion of my soul." While in college he practiced the violin up to three hours a day, which was good enough to be invited to the Governor’s parties to play. His favorite composer was Corelli, though he also had great respect for Haydn, and he said he envied the French their music. So who was this music lover, this Great President?
Thomas Jefferson, third president of these United States. He practiced violin at William and Mary so much he got to play gigs at “The Palace” during parties thrown by the Royal Governor of Virginia. Jefferson's granddaughter used to sleep directly over Jefferson on the third floor at Monticello and she said she often heard him “humming old tunes, generally Scottish songs but sometimes Italian airs or hymns." Jefferson is reported to have been “always singing when riding or walking, and the man who oversaw Jefferson’s plantation, Edmund Bacon, said “He was nearly always humming some tune, or singing in a low tone to himself.”

February 3rd: This time it's a Quiz about family ties. This Great Composer's aunt, Sarah Levy, was a talented keyboard player, and had been a student of the oldest son of Bach - Wilhelm Friedman - as well as a patron of Bach's second son - Carl Philipp Emanuel. What's more, Sarah Levy owned an impressive collection of manuscripts of the Bach family that she allowed our young Great Composer to study. All the instruments we have agree, her Bach connection had a deep and lasting impact on her nephew. So who as this man twice removed from Sebastian Bach, this Great Composer?
Felix Mendelssohn, born 200 years ago today, in Hamburg. With such an aunt it's easy to see how he could have grown up deeply influenced by Bach - how he came to be the great champion of Bach in his lifetime, reviving the St. Matthew Passion, which set in motion the Bach revival of the 19th century. Mendelssohn also went to live in Leipizg and was director of the choir at St. Thomas Church, which is where Bach worked a century earlier.

February 2nd: This time it's a Quiz about playing the fool's game of chasing the easy buck. This Great Composer always had financial worries. He was never free of them, and so in his mid-30s he decided to pursue, what he called "the glittering illusion of fortune" which the theater offered, and began work on an opera. He worked on it over several years and was never completely satisfied with it. "This business of the opera," he said, "is the most tedious in the world." And though it did see the light of day it did not bring him the fortune he sought. So who was this man unsuited for the stage, this Great Composer?
Ludwig van Beethoven, whose only opera was Fidelio, or as he preferred to call it Leonore. It was not especially successful, but this did not stop Beethoven from offering himself to a theater's board of directors as "composer to the theater." This however, did not come about.

January 30th: This time it's a Quiz about lending a helping hand. This Great Composer gave away a large percentage of his concert proceeds to charity and humanitarian causes. He worked to help build a National School of Music in his homeland, and he gave to a building fund for the Cologne Cathedral. He helped establish a school in another town and the construction of a church in another. He gave privately to hospitals and musicians pension funds. After the Great Fire of Hamburg which raged for three weeks and destroyed much of the city he gave concerts in aid of the thousands who were homeless there. He even worked to raise money for monuments to his favorite composer. So who was this philanthropic man, this Great Composer?
Franz Liszt, who helped build the Hungarian National School of Music and the Leopold Church in Pest. He also gave to build a school at Dortmund, to help the Leipzig Musicians Pension Fund, and he helped raise money for those made homeless by the Great Hamburg Fire. He also worked to raise funds for monuments to Beethoven in Bonn and Vienna.

January 29th: This time it;s a Quiz about letting your feelings show. This Great Composer's sister described our Great Composer in her journal like this: "With him everything is open and spontaneous, he always gives himself away - never the slightest effort to conceal the vagaries of his mood." Acquaintances agreed, our Great Composer's mood was often mockery, and when he encountered incompetence his mood would change to humiliating scorn. He enjoyed smoking "a good cigar," locked in discourse late in the evening. So who was this mimicking, scornful, and transparent man, this Great Composer?
The brother of Nanci Berlioz, Hector.

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